Mahmoud Abbas told the UN he wants new elections. He lied. - by Elder of Ziyon

Yesterday, Fatah spokesman Osama al-Qawasmi said, “We confirm that our candidate is President Abbas in any upcoming presidential elections.” Why does the media still believe anything this man says?

Elder of Ziyon..
31 October '19..

In September, Mahmoud Abbas announced at the UN that he intends to schedule elections as soon as he returns to Ramallah. "I have decided, upon my return from this international gathering, to announce a date for the holding of general elections in Palestine – in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip," he said.

Five weeks later, no such date has been announced.

What did happen is that Abbas appointed a committee with only members of his Fatah party, not to schedule elections but to "study" the elections. “We will discuss the elections, preparations for holding it and measures that will be taken to achieve this goal,” Abbas said.

I didn't bother to report about this because this is all a game. Abbas doesn't plan on holding elections - he is planning to use the pretense of elections to achieve more power.

This game has been played before. Abbas agreed with Hamas on elections in 2014 and 2018 and nothing happened.

There are two impossible challenges to overcome, which Abbas knows quite well.

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Bernie’s Gaza aid farce certainly exposes J Street’s false front - by Jonathan S. Tobin

In a competition to see which Democratic candidate can pander more to the far left by undermining Israel, the Vermont Socialist wins by a landslide.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
JNS.org..
30 October '19..

The still-crowded 2020 Democratic presidential field proved to be a godsend for the left-wing J Street lobby. It gained attention for its annual conference this week due to the presence of five presidential candidates. But the dynamic of the event didn’t give a boost to its supposed “pro-Israel, pro-peace” agenda. To the contrary, the tenor of the coverage of the event showed that the group had achieved a very different goal. That was to be a magnet for opponents of the Jewish state, as it became clear that the main objective of the vote seekers was to avoid being outflanked on the left and to therefore outdo each other in vowing support for measures designed not merely to pressure Israel, but to cripple it and help its foes.

The winner of this competition to be tough on Israel was Sen. Bernie Sanders. The Vermont Socialist has always used his Jewish identity and his stay on a kibbutz more than half a century ago as a license to attack Israel with impunity. While continuing to express support for Israel’s right to exist, he also holds a position that its leaders must be brought to heel in such a manner as to force not just the creation of a Palestinian state alongside it, but to hamstring its right to self-defense.

Even more damaging is his consistent support for the idea that the independent Palestinian state in all but name that already exists in Gaza should be the beneficiary of a new “even-handed” U.S. stand on the Middle East. In the past, that has meant doing his best to organize support in Congress for opposition to the international isolation of the Hamas-run enclave and to undermine Israel’s efforts to defend its people against the terrorists who govern the Strip.

But the main headline that came out of the J Street conference concerned Sanders’s latest proposal, in which he went one step beyond his previous threats to cut U.S. aid to Israel.

(Continue to Full Column)

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Surprise? Palestinian terrorist is like Jesus, according to official PA daily - by Itamar Marcus

Portraying a Palestinian terrorist suspected of murder as Jesus is in keeping with the PA’s rewriting history and its fundamental support of terror, which claims that Jesus was the first Palestinian "Martyr", and that terrorist murderers are heroes.

[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida,
Oct. 16, 2019]

Itamar Marcus..
Plaestinian Media Watch..
29 October '19..
Link: https://palwatch.org/page/16672

Samer Arbid is the Palestinian terrorist arrested with two others for detonating a bomb which murdered 17-year-old Rina Shnerb and injured her father and brother near the Dolev spring on Aug. 26, 2019.

Arbid, who is a member of the terror organization Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, was hospitalized for 2 weeks soon after his arrest, and the Palestinian Authority claimed that it was a result of his interrogation. Having allegedly been injured by Jews, the official PA daily published a cartoon portraying the terrorist as Jesus on the cross.

Portraying a Palestinian terrorist suspected of murder as Jesus is in keeping with the PA’s rewriting history and its fundamental support of terror, which claims that Jesus was the first Palestinian "Martyr", and that terrorist murderers are heroes.

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Read the incredible story of the IDF's Iraqi Arabic instructor - by Neta Bar

For years, Command Sgt. Maj. V.'s family lived in fear under the regime of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and hid their Jewish identity. Eventually, they became the last Jews to arrive in Israel from Iraq, whose once-glorious Jewish community no longer exists.

Neta Bar..
Israel Hayom..
23 October '19..

Throughout the history of the Israel Defense Forces, the IDF has frequently drawn on the services of new immigrants to Israel. Many have been called to the colors before they were fully acclimated to the country or even spoke fluent Hebrew. Like so many others, Command Sgt. Maj. V. was still a new arrival when she was called on to serve, but unlike most, she received the call precisely because of her knowledge and experience from her previous life in the Diaspora.

Command Sgt. Maj. V. serves as an Arabic instructor in the IDF's Intelligence Corps. She is responsible for teaching Arab culture and mentality as well as the Arabic language to intelligence personnel, for whom the knowledge is vital.

According to what her comrades in her unit say, V. has become something of a legend, not only because she is admired as a teacher or because she spent a long time in an operational unit, but mostly because of her personal story. Her family was one of the last Jewish families in Iraq and finally made aliyah after years of living in fear.

Israel Hayom meets with V. on an IDF base in central Israel. She arrives in uniform and as we sit down, she takes me through her incredible story, step by step.

V. was born to a Jewish family in Iraq. At the time, Iraq's Jewish community was a shell of its former glory and only a few thousand out of a community that once numbered 120,000 remained in the country.

The Iraqi Ba'ath regime persecuted the Jews who remained and saw them as spies. A few were even hanged to death on suspicion of espionage. The authorities' behavior convinced the Jews that it was time to leave – including V.'s family. But then the ax fell.

(Continue to Full Story)

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The only real way to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Gaza - by Martin Sherman

In light of the repeated failure of all that has been tried, there seems little point in persisting with similar measures unless, of course, one believes that at some unspecified time, the Palestinian Arabs of Gaza will, for some unspecified reason and by some unspecified process, morph into something they have not been for more than 100 years. But what if such an unlikely metamorphosis fails to materialize? What then?

Martin Sherman..
JNS.org..
25 October '19..

… “Arafat was sober, businesslike, almost in awe of the scale of the problems that he faces in turning this impoverished strip of land into the paradise that many of his people expect will come from self-rule.” — Los Angeles Times, On Yasser Arafat’s return to Gaza following the signing of the Oslo Accords, July 2, 1994

“We predicted some years ago that Gaza would fast become unlivable on a host of indicators and that deadline is actually approaching even faster than we predicted — from health access, to energy to water.” — Robert Piper, Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations Development Coordination, The Times of Israel, July 11, 2017

“We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them.” — An aphorism attributed to Albert Einstein

More than a quarter-century has passed since Israel first permitted the arch-terrorist, Yasser Arafat, access to the Gaza Strip in July 1994. He entered the coastal enclave in jubilant triumph to the cheers of thousands, who lined the streets and squares to welcome him. The mood of euphoria reflected the naive optimism of the time, which, as some more sober souls warned, soon proved tragically unfounded.

Of course, it was a euphoria (read “myopia”) that wasn’t confined to the Gazan side of the border. For example, the Israeli foreign minister, Shimon Peres, widely considered the driving force behind the Oslo Process, was quoted at the time as expressing satisfaction with Arafat’s performance as a peace partner. According to Peres: “The test is in the doing and as things have been done until now, things are going beautifully. … Until now it must be said that of all the Palestinian leaders, Arafat … delivered the goods.”

Sadly, but not entirely unexpectedly—at least, for those who opposed the Oslo process—life for the average Gazan has been in a steep downward spiral, particularly after the 2005 unilateral evacuation of the Strip by Israel.

In many ways, Gaza has become the ultimate indictment of the two-state, land-for-peace prescription. After all, after more than two-and-half decades, despite almost unanimous international support and massive financial aid, the attempt to foist self-governance on Gaza has failed dismally.

(Continue to Full Column)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Another Gaza healthcare story the BBC chooses to ignore - by Hadar Sela

Apparently the BBC is not interested in stories relating to healthcare in the Gaza Strip if they cannot be used to promote the inaccurate view that (as also claimed by Hamas) that the system’s many problems are primarily attributable to Israel’s counter-terrorism measures and the roles of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority in creating and exacerbating the crisis cannot be airbrushed from the story.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
24 October '19..

In early August we noted that work had begun on a sixteen-department field hospital near the Erez Crossing at the north of the Gaza Strip and that the Palestinian Authority was objecting to the project.

“Although BBC audiences are told plenty about the dire state of medical services in the Gaza Strip, they rarely hear about the PA actions which exacerbate that situation such as the longstanding insufficient supply of medications. Whether or not they will be informed of this latest own goal from the Palestinian Authority remains to be seen.”

Despite the fact that the BBC has a staffed office in the Gaza Strip, audiences have indeed heard nothing about the new hospital or the Palestinian Authority’s specious claim that the field hospital was “part of a plan to separate the West Bank from the Gaza Strip”.

Since then the PA’s official media has managed to come up with even more bizarre claims – as reported by PMW.

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Promoting Guilt By False Association: Israel ‘Noted in Particular’ - by Simon Plosker

How sad that The Independent, most likely also driven by its anti-Israel agenda, has given Zinevich a platform for his hate.

Simon Plosker..
Honest Reporting..
23 October '19..

Anti-Israel activists will use any opportunity to present Israel as guilty by association with states that engage in controversial behavior. The South American state of Chile is currently experiencing violent street protests that have led to 15 reported deaths so far.

What has this got to do with Israel?

Plenty, according to The Independent.

Who is Benjamin Zinevich?

But firstly, who is Benjamin Zinevich, the author of the opinion piece?

Is he an academic? An expert on Israel-Chile relations?

No.

The Independent fails to provide any bio for Zinevich but a simple Google search reveals that he is an undergraduate student New York University where he is a prominent anti-Israel activist and member of the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) organization, described by the Anti-Defamation League as “a network of pro-Palestinian student groups across the US which disseminate anti-Israel propaganda often laced with inflammatory and at times combative rhetoric. They are a leading campus organizer of Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaigns against Israel, and specialize in using confrontational tactics such as disrupting student-run pro-Israel events, and constructing mock “apartheid walls” and distributing fake “eviction notices” to dramatize what they consider Israeli abuses of Palestinians.”

Zinevich most recently co-sponsored a resolution on his own NYU campus calling for a boycott of the school’s own study abroad program in Tel Aviv.

Zinevich’s bio page on The Independent is empty. In the interests of transparency, shouldn’t The Independent disclose the background of the contributor?

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Dance Under Fire: The rhythms of life on the Israeli side of Gaza border - by David E. Kaplan

...While dance instructors anywhere else in the world might be concerned over issues of students facing personal problems or being ill, Dror is anxious: “Will we be able to rehearse? Will we get to finish that rehearsal or will the rocket sirens go off? After all, it’s my responsibility to put on a show even under rocket fire.”

David E. Kaplan..
Lay of the Land..
23 October '19..

A planned dance performance on the Gazan border reminds me of the Gulf War of 1991 when Iraq were raining Scud missiles down on Israel and maestro Zubin Mehta raced back from New York to conduct concerts. “I had many obligations in New York that should have prevented me from coming, but I couldn’t imagine not being here,” he said at the time, while he was director of the New York Philharmonic. He conducted full-house concerts keeping his gas mask nearly as close to him as his baton, “just in case!”

“Can you imagine,” he told this writer in an exclusive interview on the occasion of his 80th birthday in 2016 in Tel Aviv, “Scuds where dropping out of the sky, possibly with chemicals but this did not deter Israelis from wanting to hear classical music.”

It sent a powerful and poignant message not to the likes of Saddam Hussein – a waste of time – but to the people of Israel who were asserting, despite the dire situation, their grit and love of culture.

Fast forward to the present and again that characteristic is being expressed by Liat Dror‘s Sderot-based dance company which is staging a performance on the Gazan border to express “our humanity” in the face of living under constant attack. “It’s my responsibility to put on a show even under rocket fire,” says a proud and defiant Liat, artistic director at the Sderot Adama Dance Company.

So, what is daily life like, living “Under Fire”?

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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PM Netanyahu, Mandelblit, the media and the fate of Israeli democracy - by Caroline Glick

The Israeli establishment has long sought to destroy Netanyahu, the only political leader in Israeli history who was never a member of their club and never sought their approval. They haven’t been able to defeat him at the ballot box and now they have placed their hopes in the politicized state prosecution. If Mandelblit chooses to make their dream a reality, he will not merely get rid of Netanyahu. He will criminalize routine politics and so end Israeli democracy while replacing our political leaders with unelected prosecutors who have richly demonstrated their lack of objectivity and contempt for the public.

Caroline Glick..
Carolineglick.com..
20 October '19..
Link: http://carolineglick.com/netanyahu-the-media-and-the-fate-of-israeli-democracy/

The ongoing criminal probes against Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyhahu are reaching their climax. After conducting a marathon four-day pre-indictment hearing for Netanyahu earlier this month, Israel’s Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit reportedly intends to complete his review of the state prosecution’s cases and decide whether to indict Israel’s longest-serving prime minister by the end of next month. The main charges against Netanyahu relate to his associations with media owners.

For three years, illegal leaks from the investigations have dominated the news. The key question – indeed, just about the only question – that has been endlessly discussed is whether or not Mandelblit will end Netanyahu’s political career by indicting him on corruption charges.

The importance of this question is self-evident. On the one hand we have a democratically elected leader. On the other hand, we have unelected state prosecutors who wish to oust him from power by indicting him.

For nearly a year, Israeli politics have been in a state of chaos because of the criminal probes. The probes played a central role in the April Knesset elections and arguably were the primary reason that Netanyahu failed to form a coalition despite his electoral victory. Today the probes and Mandelblit’s deliberations are the primary reason that no one can form a government in the wake of last month’s repeat elections. If Israel holds a third election in the coming months, the probes will again be the central issue determining both the result and the ability of whoever wins to form a government. The center-left Blue and White party is using the probes as an excuse to refuse to join a coalition government with Netanyahu.

While the probes’ impact on Netanyahu’s political future is a key question, and on the composition of the next government is certainly a big deal, neither of these issues is the central matter than hangs in the balance as Mandelblit holds his deliberations.

If Israel’s Attorney General relies on these probes as a means to end Netanyahu’s career, he will do far more than overthrow a political leader. He will embrace a legal doctrine that rejects the very essence of democracy.

Excellent Question. Does Angela Merkel Deserve a Prize for Zionism? - by Soeren Kern

"Why is Merkel being awarded the Theodor Herzl Award? Because her representative at the United Nations abstains in anti-Israel resolutions — and thereby de facto supports them? The same official who equates Hamas rocket attacks on Israeli civilians with Israel's demolition of the homes of Palestinian terrorists? For not relocating the German embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, as the United States did, and also warning other countries against taking such a step? For all this, she gets the Theodor Herzl Award?" — Henryk Broder, German Political Commentator, Die Achse des Guten.

Soeren Kern..
Gatestone Institute..
19 October '19..

A decision by the World Jewish Congress (WJC) to honor German Chancellor Angela Merkel with its prestigious Theodor Herzl Award for Zionism has sparked anger and bewilderment among Jewish leaders in the United States and Europe.

The WJC, founded in August 1936 in Geneva, Switzerland, to confront the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi persecution of Jews in Europe, bestows its annual award to individuals who act to promote the goals of the late Theodor Herzl, the founder of the modern Zionist movement, "for the creation of a safer and more tolerant world for Jews."

Critics say that Merkel, because her domestic and foreign policies have in recent years made the world less safe for Jews, is uniquely undeserving of the award. These policies include:

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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From Arafat to Abbas: Lubing the Palestinian Authority donor machine - by David Bedein

Western donor humanitarian funds have one purpose: to act as a political resource for Abbas and his supporters. The notion that humanitarian aid to the P.A. reaches the Palestinian Arab people has no basis in reality.

David Bedein..
JNS.org..
17 October '19..

When it comes to humanitarian aid to the Palestinian Authority, transparency does not exist.

The result has become a wealthy Palestinian elite that builds exclusive neighborhoods around Ramallah, leaving thousands of shoddily constructed apartments without services for the rest of Palestinian society.

Yasser Arafat set the tone for the P.A. when he arrived in Gaza in 1994. Arafat took control of every contract and investment, using donor money to build a secret $1 billion portfolio, including investments in Coca-Cola, a Tunisian cellular phone company and venture-capital funds in the United States and the Cayman Islands.

Arafat stole $1 billion in tax revenue relayed by Israel for Palestinian workers. The money went to Arafat’s personal account in Israel’s Bank Leumi in Tel Aviv. And a whopping $100,000 a month went to his wife, Suha, living in Paris. Arafat was estimated by U.S. investigators to be worth between $1 billion and $3 billion.


Within three years of the P.A.’s establishment, Palestinian auditors found that 40 percent of the P.A. budget ($326 million) was misappropriated—a figure that rose to $700 million a decade later.

Not one Western government objected. This set the tone for theft at all levels in the P.A.; officials paid themselves high salaries and skimmed from others.

Enter Mahmoud Abbas

Under Arafat’s successor, Mahmoud Abbas, nepotism reached every level of civil service.

(Continue to Full Column)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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President Trump’s Mideast moves show why Israeli deterrence is crucial - by Evelyn Gordon

...Despite Iran’s willingness to engage in military provocations, it has shown no desire to risk serious military consequences on Iranian soil. Indeed, it has escalated very carefully, moving up to each new level only after concluding—based on the non-response to previous attacks—that it could do so safely. And so far, it’s been right: Even the attack on the Saudi refineries, its worst to date, drew no military response from Riyadh or Washington. But years of Israeli airstrikes against Iranian and Iranian-affiliated targets have proven that the Jewish state won’t let Iranian aggression go unanswered, and any Iranian escalation will be met commensurately.

Evelyn Gordon..
JNS.org..
16 October '19..

U.S. President Donald Trump’s latest Mideast decisions cast Israeli airstrikes in Syria and (reportedly) Iraq in a different light. Previously, these airstrikes seemed to be aimed solely at preventing Iran from establishing military infrastructure in both countries that could threaten Israel. But it now turns out they were also sending an important deterrent message: If Tehran attacks Israel, Jerusalem will have no qualms about striking back.

The conventional wisdom has been that even if these airstrikes were necessary for Israel’s defense, they posed a real risk of escalation. And obviously, that remains a possibility.

But given Trump’s latest moves, they may actually be making war less likely by letting Tehran know that Jerusalem—unlike, say, Saudi Arabia—won’t sit with folded hands if it suffers a significant Iranian attack like last month’s strike on Saudi oil facilities. The realization that Israel has both the ability and the will to hit back hard might well deter Iran from launching such a strike, even though it now knows that it wouldn’t be risking an American response.

For this reason, much of the rhetoric about how Trump’s recent decisions will affect Israel is overblown, even though the decisions themselves are unequivocally horrible. Strategically, the U.S. withdrawal from northern Syria abandons that area to very bad actors (Turkey and/or Iran). It’s also a moral atrocity, as it abandons the Kurds to Turkey’s tender mercies despite their having been America’s most loyal and effective partner against the Islamic State. And it signals the world that Washington won’t protect its allies, thereby reducing the incentive to be an American ally. Trump’s inaction after Iran destroyed half of Saudi Arabia’s oil processing capacity sent a similar message.

(Continue to Full Column)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Actually, the Guardian buries real cause of peace process failure - by Adam Levick

...as we’ve demonstrated continually, one of the leading factors behind the Guardian’s institutional pro-Palestinian bias is their refusal to take Palestinians seriously as agents of their own fate – a failure to grant Palestinians agency which invariably leads to a mono-causal, Israeli focused explanation that’s fundamentally ahistorical, thus grossly misleading readers on the root cause of the conflict.

Adam Levick..
UK Media Watch..
15 October '19..





The narrative that the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin by extremist Yigal Amir killed the Israeli-Palestinian peace process is advanced in the headline of an Oct. 11th Guardian review of a new Israeli film on the 1995 tragedy:

It’s also included in the opening paragraph of the review, written by Anne Joseph:

The murder of an Israeli prime minister by an Orthodox Jew was inconceivable,” says American-Israeli film-maker Yaron Zilberman. “For anyone who was pro-peace, it was beyond anything that we could fathom.” The assassination of Yitzhak Rabin by the religious ultra-nationalist law student Yigal Amir, at a peace rally on 4 November 1995, was one of the most traumatic events in Israel’s history. Rabin’s death buried the prospect of peace, further divided an already riven society and left an indelible mark on Israel’s politics.

The Guardian claim doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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The Hebron Riots of 1929: Consequences and Lessons - CAMERA Op-Ed

...The commission noted that Arab objections to Zionism were ideological, comprehensive, intense, and inflexible. In its report, it nonetheless devoted thousands of words to minute details of specific Arab grievances. It plumbed complaints that Jews, on one occasion, brought a chair to Jerusalem’s Western Wall and, on another, set up a screen there to divide male and female worshipers.

Sean Durns..
CAMERA..
15 October '19..

In 1929, Arab clerics and politicians provoked riots across Palestine by accusing Jews of plotting to take control of Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa Mosque. This month marks the 90th anniversary of those riots — but they are not a bygone. Palestinian Authority and Hamas leaders incite violence today using similar falsehoods and ideology.

The 1929 riots destroyed the Jewish community in Hebron. They persuaded Labor Zionist leader David Ben-Gurion that socialist fraternity among Jewish and Arab workers and peasants would not ensure peace. They impelled Palestine’s Jews to bolster the Haganah, their underground self-defense group. And they vindicated Zionist warnings against relying on foreigners for security.

To investigate the riots, the British government, which controlled Palestine at the time, appointed an inquiry board known as the Shaw Commission.

The commission noted that Arab objections to Zionism were ideological, comprehensive, intense, and inflexible. In its report, it nonetheless devoted thousands of words to minute details of specific Arab grievances. It plumbed complaints that Jews, on one occasion, brought a chair to Jerusalem’s Western Wall and, on another, set up a screen there to divide male and female worshipers.

All this brings to mind the story of a man who thoroughly detests his wife but makes his case for divorce on the grounds that she doesn’t put the cap back on the toothpaste tube. Obviously, what he gripes about is not what accounts for his detestation. Confusion on this score was characteristic of Middle East policy officials in 1929, and it still is.

(Note: The rest of this Op-Ed, authored by Douglas J. Feith, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, and CAMERA Senior Research Analyst Sean Durns, can be read at National Review)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Who Would've Thought? NY Times, B'Tselem misinform on "Palestinians' in Jordan Valley - by Gilead Ini

...Whatever the exact percentage of off-limits land in the Jordan Valley, it seems clear that the figure is significantly less than 85 percent. And it should be equally clear to the New York Times that it is extremely misleading to cast restrictions that apply to both Palestinians and Israels as affecting Palestinians, specifically.

Gilead Ini..
CAMERA..
08 October '19..

The New York Times misinformed readers in two recent stories about Palestinians in the Jordan Valley — and although the newspaper promises to correct mistakes big and small, it has yet to correct its errors.

Access to Jordan Valley Land


In the first story, a Sept. 10 piece by Ben Hubbard, the paper erred about Palestinian access to the Jordan Valley, a stretch of land parallel to the Jordan River that runs along the West Bank’s eastern border. Citing the Israeli advocacy group B’Tselem, Hubbard told readers Palestinians are “barred from entering or using about 85 percent” of the Jordan Valley where it passes through the West Bank.

The claim that Palestinians are only able to enter 15 percent of the territory, though, is false.
Depending on where exactly one draws the boundaries of the Jordan Valley — there’s no single, official delineation of the territory — between seven and thirteen percent of the region is designated as Area A or Area B — the names given to West Bank territory in which civilian matters are administered by the Palestinian Authority, in line with peace agreements signed by Israel and the Palestinians.

Israeli communities and their lands, which sit within Area C, the third and largest portion of the West Bank, take up another roughly eight to fifteen percent of the Jordan Valley. The New York Times itself has frequently documented that Palestinians can enter these settlements. Indeed, on the very day Ben Hubbard’s piece was published, a separate Times story noted that that nearly all the male population of Fasayil, a Palestinian village in the Jordan Valley, are employed in the neighboring settlement of Tomer. Even if these agricultural workers needed to obtain security clearances from Israeli authorities, their daily presence in Tomer — along with the tens of thousands of Palestinians who enter settlements across the West Bank every day for work or health care — shows that Palestinians are not “barred from entering” settlement lands.

Between Area A, Area B, and the settlements, then, roughly 15 to 28 percent of Jordan Valley land is accessible to, and accessed by, Palestinians.

So what of the remainder of Jordan Valley land — Area C territory that isn’t attached to settlements?

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Still harboring the Sbarro pizzeria bomber, Jordan's inscrutable US relationship - by Arnold Roth

Jordan continues, despite the outrageous finger-in-the-American-eye, to be treated by the United States as if nothing had happened. Our objections, as the parents of a child, a US citizen, murdered in the Sbarro massacre, are for all practical purposes ignored.The government-controlled Jordan Times has just produced the next chapter in this ongoing process of US self-debasement.

Arnold/Frimet Roth..
This Ongoing War..
08 October '19..

The Jordanian government harbors and safeguards within its borders the Sbarro pizzeria bomber, Ahlam Tamimi, a Hamas jihad agent. It has been doing this since at least March 2017, days after the US Department of Justice unveiled terrorism charges against her and announced that it had called on Jordan to extradite her under their 1995 treaty.

Since then, and despite repeated efforts by us - Frimet and Arnold Roth whose daughter Malki was murdered in the terror attack masterminded by Tamimi - the US government has not once stated publicly in any form or any language that it views Jordan's unstated failure to extradite as being in clear breach of the 1995 Extradition Treaty signed by the two countries.

From US law enforcement services, we have learned that they are ready to take Tamimi into custody. The problem is Jordan won't allow it.

We have written polite and carefully drafted letters to a variety of senior officials in the Department of Justice, to officials in the State Department, to the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, to a variety of US diplomats posted in the Middle East. Not one of these has produced a satisfactory response, no matter how generously "satisfactory" is defined.

Jordan continues, despite the outrageous finger-in-the-American-eye, to be treated by the United States as if nothing had happened. Our objections, as the parents of a child, a US citizen, murdered in the Sbarro massacre, are for all practical purposes ignored.

The government-controlled Jordan Times has just produced the next chapter in this ongoing process of US self-debasement.

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Is there some lack of clarity that a state that threatens Jewish genocide isn’t normal? - by Jonathan S. Tobin

Iran isn’t a normal country, and neither Europe nor America’s opposition party should speak as if it were.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
JNS.org..
08 October '19..

Gen. Hossein Salami, the commander-in-chief of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, gave a speech last month in which he celebrated Iran’s military might and its goals. As is Tehran’s policy, the IRGC commander refused to use the word “Israel,” but had plenty to say about the Jewish state. According to the state-controlled IRNA news agency, Salami said that 40 years after the Iranian revolution that put the Islamist regime in power, it had “managed to obtain the capacity to destroy the imposter Zionist regime.” And lest anyone think that the amassing of military might was purely defensive in nature, Salami also maintained that, “That sinister regime must be wiped off the map” and this is no longer … a dream.” It was, he boasted, “an achievable goal.”

Salami isn’t the first Iranian leader to make such threats. They have been a staple of Iranian political rhetoric for decades, including from the country’s top ayatollahs who run that theocracy. But the fact that the IRGC—the terrorist group that runs Iran’s international terrorist network, as well as the entity that exercises a great deal of influence over its economy through the companies it owns—is still spouting talk about wiping out the sole Jewish state on the planet does raise some interesting and painfully obvious questions to which there are no good answers.

The first concerns the unwillingness of Iran’s European trading partners to confront the fact that they are still seeking to cultivate good relations with an Iranian regime that embraces genocide of Jews as a legitimate policy goal.

(Continue to Full Column)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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There Should Be No Surprise in What Iran's Friends Are Doing in Gaza - by Khaled Abu Toameh

In other words, Islamic Jihad's promise is one of unending toxicity: to go on poisoning the hearts and minds of generation after generation of Palestinians – as well as to continue investing millions of dollars in building tunnels and amassing weapons to ensure that the fight against Israel continues forever.

Khaled Abu Toameh..
Gatestone Institute..
07 October '19..

As Egypt, Qatar and the United Nations pursue their efforts to spare the two million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip another war with Israel, the Islamic Jihad organization is promising its people more suffering, violence and bloodshed. The terrorist organization is also promising to continue the fight until it achieves its goal of annihilating Israel.

The Iranian-funded Islamic Jihad's latest pledges came as the organization, the second largest group in the Gaza Strip after Hamas, celebrated this week the 32nd anniversary of its founding.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians participated in a major Islamic Jihad rally in Gaza City under the banner "Our Jihad [holy war] – The Promise Will Soon Be Fulfilled." The promise, of course, refers to Islamic Jihad's pledge to "liberate Palestine, from the [Mediterranean] Sea to the [Jordan] River – a well-known euphemism for the destruction of Israel.

Particularly disturbing is that a large number of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, an enclave often described as suffering from a high percentage of poverty and unemployment, continue to support Islamic Jihad, one of the organizations there that has done nothing to improve the living conditions of its people. Their hatred for Israel seems to be stronger than any wish to better their situation by revolting against failed Palestinian leaders and groups.

Islamic Jihad has, since its establishment, brought on Palestinians in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip nothing but misery, destruction and death.

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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The European Union's Hypocritical, Patronizing Attitude Towards Israel - by Amb. Alan Baker

The fact that the Palestinian leadership proudly pays salaries to terrorists (and their families) who have killed Israelis – in clear violation of Palestinian obligations in the Oslo Accords, as well as in other international counter-terrorism conventions and resolutions – does not appear to concern the EU representative to the peace process.

Amb. Alan Baker..
JPost/Opinion..
03 October '19..
Link: https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/The-EUs-hypocritical-patronizing-attitude-toward-Israel-603650

The curious article in The Jerusalem Post (“Peace needs international law and political will,” September 21), by European Union Special Representative for the Middle East Peace Process Susanna Terstal, is indicative of a serious and worrying lack of awareness as well as considerable possible ignorance by the EU as to the legal and political realities inherent in the peace process.

The EU representative evidently believes that incessant repetition of the phrase “two-state solution” adds some element of legitimacy and feasibility to the idea. But the two-state solution has never been agreed-upon between Israel and the Palestinians, and does not figure in any of the agreements between them. It is nothing more than an expression of wishful thinking within the UN and the EU.

To the contrary, the Oslo Accords, to which the EU itself is a signatory, clearly leaves the issue of the permanent status of the territories to be decided in negotiations. The accords do not predetermine the outcome of the negotiations. Thus, whether the outcome will be one, two or three states, or a federation or confederation, remains on the negotiating table. This cannot be dictated by the EU, however much they might be enamored with the idea of a two-state solution.

By incessantly plying a two-state solution, the EU is in fact prejudging an agreed negotiating issue and going against its own responsibilities as a signatory to the Oslo Accords.

In referring to electioneering suggestions by Israeli leaders to “apply sovereignty,” the EU representatives complain that unilateral modification of the Oslo Accords “undermines the entire agreement” and “dismantles Oslo.”

One wonders why the EU did not view the recent declarations by the Palestinian leadership canceling the territorial division between areas A, B and C in a similar light. Did this not undermine the accords?

Similarly, where was the EU when the Palestinian foreign minister formally declared in Japan that the Palestinians had no intention of returning to negotiations with Israel?

BTW, whatever happened to the Palestinian ‘diplomatic tsunami’? - by Jonathan S. Tobin

Anti-Zionists may still be able to intimidate some people, like pop stars who visit Israel, but in the real world and even at the United Nations, their cause is an afterthought.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
JNS.org..
04 October '19..

It was only eight years ago that supporters of Israel were trembling at the possibility that support for the Jewish state would soon be washed away by a “diplomatic tsunami” that would be unleashed by the Palestinians at the United Nations.

In the spring of 2011, President Barack Obama demanded that Israel negotiate the creation of an independent Palestinian state based on the 1967 armistice lines. The Palestinian Authority chose not to embrace Obama’s initiative, but instead embarked on a campaign to get the United Nations to recognize their statehood without first requiring them to make peace with Israel. Figures such as then Defense Minister Ehud Barak predicted that such a “tsunami” meant “Israel’s delegitimization was in sight.” For Barak and others who still believed in the Oslo peace process even after its collapse a decade earlier in the violence of the Second Intifada, the prospect of such total international isolation meant that Israel had no choice but to withdraw from the West Bank and part of Jerusalem, regardless of the consequences.

Eight years later, no one speaks of a Palestinian tsunami at the United Nations—or anywhere else, for that matter. Instead, the only places where efforts to delegitimize Israel seem to be succeeding is on the social-media pages of pop stars. While Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas’s annual sojourn to the United Nations last month was greeted with yawns, the only recent success that haters of Israel can claim was the bullying this week of singer Demi Lovato.

(Continue to Full Column)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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